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Showing papers in "Sojourn in 2013"


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jul 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: The authors examined the boundaries between Burmese "open" and "hider" subject positions and found that the two dominant, non-gender normative subject positions are open and hide, denoting a feminine image and a masculine image, respectively.
Abstract: “Queer” research invariably entails practices of labelling and ascription, often through the adoption of local vernacular categories from the field. In Myanmar, practices of labelling are commonly unarticulated, and local terms are contested. Acts of categorization are thus challenged. The two dominant, non-gender normative subject positions are “open”, denoting a feminine image, and “hider”, denoting a masculine image. An examination of the elements of external image, internal mind/heart and karma and of the boundaries between Burmese “open” and “hider” subject positions permits a better understanding of these positions. While Burmese “queer” categories mark out a field of gender liminality, their use for individual ascription complicates existing conventions.

18 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jul 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: A hybrid judicial tribunal was inaugurated in Phnom Penh in 2006 to try those most responsible for the mass crimes perpetrated during the period of Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia, 1975-79.
Abstract: A hybrid judicial tribunal was inaugurated in Phnom Penh in 2006 to try those most responsible for the mass crimes perpetrated during the period of Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia, 1975–79. Since the inception of the tribunal, there has been regular friction between the international and national sides, some of which has led to considerable animosity. In 2012 the international Co-investigating Judge resigned after only a few months in office, claiming that he had found himself in a hostile environment and had been unable to carry out his duties. Impasses of this kind arise in the specific social context in which security has come to be configured and managed in Cambodia, in part with the complicity of foreign powers. Greater appreciation of the historical background and social context that frame the lives of court staff would enable us to have more realistic expectations of future hybrid tribunals.

18 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jul 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the paradoxical role of the state and the law in the protection of migrants' rights in Thailand and reveal the chaos of human rights praxis in everyday migrant life.
Abstract: Migration and human rights stand in ambiguous relation to each other. Different, at time contradictory, conceptions of human rights in the context of migrant labour in Thailand reveal the paradoxical role of the state and the law in the protection of migrants’ rights. The state is held accountable for the protection of the human rights of migrants residing in its territory, even as it at the same time creates the conditions that may result in those migrants’ exclusion from protection. Examination of this exclusion in the particular case of Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand and their efforts to enact what Hannah Arendt called “the right to have rights” reveals the chaos of human rights praxis in everyday migrant life.

18 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Nov 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: A comparative analysis of these latter efforts, with a particular focus on the nature and changing content of Islamist thinking on the Constitution and its relation to Islam, and on the differing contexts on which the debates took place, informs explanation of the dismal failure.
Abstract: ��� In 1945 Indonesian politicians endeavouring to create a constitution for their hoped-for Indonesian state engaged in heated debate about the place of Islam in that state. However, the compromise at which they arrived, the famous “seven words” of the Jakarta Charter, was abruptly erased on 18 August, the day after the independence proclamation, by the committee charged with finalizing and validating the Constitution. Subsequently, there have been two further formal efforts to Islamize the Indonesian Constitution, the first in the late 1950s in the Konstituante (Constituent Assembly) and the second during the constitutional amendment process at the turn of the twenty-first century. Both failed. A comparative analysis of these latter efforts — with a particular focus on the nature and changing content of Islamist thinking on the Constitution and its relation to Islam — and on the differing contexts on which the debates took place, informs explanation of the dismal failure of both.

14 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Nov 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: The analysis of land acquisition practices and labour regimes in an oil palm small-scale scheme in West Kalimantan brings fresh understanding to this debate as discussed by the authors, which substantiates the need for nuanced representation of the role of oil palm agribusiness for development and suggest an approach to realistic understanding of its potential for development.
Abstract: The potential of oil palm agribusiness for socio-economic development in Indonesia remains a matter of debate. There are important differences between the government’s representation of oil palm agribusiness as a panacea for the problems of development and the realities of this economic system as manifested on the ground. The analysis of land acquisition practices and labour regimes in an oil palm smallholding scheme in West Kalimantan brings fresh understanding to this debate. Diverse forms of socio-economic differentiation substantiate the need for nuanced representation of the role of oil palm agribusiness for development and suggest an approach to realistic understanding of its potential for development.

13 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Nov 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: The work of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM) set into motion a national inquiry into the status of customary rights to land in Malaysia as discussed by the authors, which concluded with formal public hearings in Peninsular Malyasia, Sarawak and Sabah.
Abstract: Malaysia has declared its vision of developed country status by the year 2020. Much has been written about its top-down development approach, its relative economic success and the social as well as environmental costs of such approach. In 2011 and 2012 the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM) set into motion a national inquiry into the status of customary rights to land in the country. As part of the inquiry, a nationwide series of consultations was held over several months in 2012, culminating in formal public hearings in Peninsular Malyasia, Sarawak and Sabah. A major objective of the inquiry was to evaluate ways which could make development in Malaysia more inclusive and delineate obstacles to a better acknowlegement of indigenous peoples’ rights to customary land.

10 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jul 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: In the course of this increase in the popularity of amulets, those with the image of the Buddha or that of a Buddhist saint clearly established their supremacy over other non- or quasi-Buddhistamulets as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The increase in crime and violence and the rising popularity of so-called Buddhist amulets in Thai society after World War II were directly related. While the cult of amulets had been long and widely practised among the Thai, it was only during the war years and thereafter, when crime and violence surged throughout the country, that the cult of Buddhist amulets grew dramatically in popularity. In the course of this increase in the popularity of amulets, those with the image of the Buddha or that of a Buddhist saint clearly established their supremacy over other non- or quasi-Buddhist amulets. Many highly respected “local” monks, living or dead, whose sanctity and amulets had previously been known largely to a closed circle of local followers now became more widely known. The prestige of the local saints grew and expanded beyond their local communities, encompassing a wider geographical region. The period saw what one may term the regionalization of local Buddhist saints in Thailand.

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Nov 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: This paper argued that advertisements in print, as a genre, qualify commodities as embodiments and/or possessions of the nation and that their consumption is a form of appropriation by individuals of the qualities of the country.
Abstract: Newspaper advertisements for various products have been used to promote the annual rice harvest festival, the Pesta Kaamatan, of the Kadazandusun minority group of Sabah. Robert argued that advertisements in print, as a genre, qualify commodities as embodiments and/or possessions of the nation and that their consumption is a form of appropriation by individuals of the qualities of the nation. This paper asks whether the same notion remains applicable if we replace the nation with one of its allotropes: the ethnic group. While it can be argued that there is a specific Kadazandusun community of consumers, these consumers constitute only a subgroup of the Malaysian whole, albeit one that shares specific characteristics with that whole. This situation reflects the unique form of the Malaysian nation, which presents itself as a pluralistic arrangement in which the main communities retain their cultural distinctiveness. Cultures of consumption and advertisement can be agents in “materializing” and objectifying not only the nation but also the minority ethnic groups that constitute it. Such agency marks the legal, religious and cultural precepts that limit movements between objectified categories, specifically the categories separating Muslims from non-Muslims through different practices of consumption.

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Mar 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: A closer inspection of O-Net exam questions reveals that the test perpetuates biases in the Thai education system as mentioned in this paper, and that through the ritual of taking the exam at the same time in the same formation, students across the country are indoctrinated into an imagined community and convinced of the exam's equalizing power.
Abstract: Thailand’s national exam, the Ordinary National Educational Test (“O-Net”), is explicitly intended to standardize education, but it has also become the producer and product of what the test writers consider ordinary knowledge in Thailand — the knowledge of the dominant class. While branches of the Ministry of Education claim to use exam results as a means of objectively measuring students’ and schools’ capacity, a closer inspection of O-Net exam questions reveals that the test perpetuates biases in the Thai education system. Through the ritual of taking the exam at the same time in the same formation, students across the country are indoctrinated into an “imagined community” and convinced of the exam’s equalizing power, with the result that the exam is spared a social critique. Thus, through an illusion of objectivity, the exam is successful in depoliticizing the preferential access to higher education enjoyed by Bangkok’s middle class and elite and in reinforcing the myth of meritocracy.

7 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Nov 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: In this paper, a model for the incorporation of swidden cultivation into REDD+ emissions reduction schemes in Malaysia is presented. But this model is not suitable for the use of traditional fire-reduction methods.
Abstract: Global climate change measures, such as emissions-reduction schemes, operate over many areas long occupied by indigenous peoples and local communities in Southeast Asia and Australasia. REDD+ emissionsreduction schemes seek to realize both environmental protection and co-benefits, including the retention of cultural heritage and traditional knowledge. Customary fire-reduction methods practiced in northern Australia by Aboriginal people are now included within the Australian emissions-trading scheme. This model could provide a useful basis for the incorporation of swidden cultivation into REDD+ programmes in Malaysia. © 2013 ISEAS.

7 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Nov 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: Haddad's photographic collections were connected to a larger process of colonial knowledge production in which various images, including other photographs, early film footage, paintings and etchings, wrestled with competing representations of the region.
Abstract: Early photographic and anthropological processes produced specific forms of colonial knowledge. Images of Borneo captured during the colonial period thus offer a snapshot of the emerging field of anthropology. British explorer A.C. Haddon played a role in shaping early anthropological theory, from his 1898 expedition in Torres Straits and Sarawak to the subsequent analysis of his findings upon his return to Britain. During this time, the study of exotic people and places was the object of a new form of empiricism; the period also coincided with the circulation of a range of images of Asia. These images played a crucial part in constructing popular assumptions about colonized peoples and their social positions in the colonial hierarchy. Haddon’s photographic collections were connected to a larger process of colonial knowledge production in which various images — including other photographs, early film footage, paintings and etchings — wrestled with competing representations of the region. His photographs of Sarawak convey the struggle in the emerging discipline of anthropology to distil objective “truths” while competing with the subjective experiences afforded by social relations with local communities.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Mar 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate how rape perceived and handled by members of the Dao and Hmong minority groups in Lao Cai, a northern province of Vietnam, and how cultural notions relating to sexuality, female virginity and marriage are interpreted, played out and contested among victims' family members, their wider kin networks, and the authorities responsible for upholding the law at the grass-root level.
Abstract: How is rape perceived and handled by members of the Dao and Hmong minority groups in Lao Cai, a northern province of Vietnam? How are cultural notions relating to sexuality, female virginity and marriage interpreted, played out and contested among victims’ family members, their wider kin networks, and the authorities responsible for upholding the law at the grass-roots level? In particular, how is the social notion of honour used as a patriarchal tool in influencing decisions about whether or not to press charges against rapists or not? The results of fieldwork in Lao Cai during 2007 are reported.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Mar 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: A decade of participant observation and qualitative interviews, conducted mainly with domestic workers, also indicated that intimacies are also shaped by Singaporean policies on foreign domestic workers and by the strong economic demand from their families back home.
Abstract: Previous scholarship on the transformation of intimacy among foreign domestic workers has focused mainly on the care/love drain on the children left behind in workers’ countries of origin. It has neglected the ways in which individual domestic workers struggle to gain love and care in destination countries. Among foreign domestic workers who have extended their stays partly because of their bonds with boyfriends, partners, or even “husbands” working in Singapore, the care drain widely observed among the families of foreign domestic workers in their home countries can be coupled not only with monetary gain but also in some instances with a gain in love and care for the foreign domestic workers themselves. A decade of participant observation and qualitative interviews, conducted mainly with domestic workers, also indicated that intimacies are also shaped by Singaporean policies on foreign domestic workers and by the strong economic demand from their families back home.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Mar 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: The authors explored the relationship between Theravada Buddhism and socio-ethnic identity in Northern Thailand and found that adherence to Theravda Buddhism supports both the presence of the Thai state within highland villages and the production of narratives that challenge the negative social representation of Dara’ang and other highland ethnic-minority peoples.
Abstract: Processes of exclusion and inclusion structure the relationship between Theravāda Buddhism and socio-ethnic identity in Northern Thailand. The Dara’ang, a Mon-Khmer speaking population, practice a form of Buddhism similar to that found amongst various Tai cultures of the region, but distinct in many ways from that propagated by the institutions of the modern Thai state. Fieldwork conducted in Dara’ang communities is the basis for an exploration of the ways in which adherence to Theravāda Buddhism supports both the presence of the Thai state within highland villages and the production of narratives that challenge the negative social representation of Dara’ang and other highland ethnic-minority peoples.

Journal Article
01 Jul 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss how long each of these stays was and what Walker did while he was in Ban Tiam, referring to surveying households in the village at least a couple of times; he also had numerous conversations with residents.
Abstract: number of years is a marvelous way to learn about a particular place, its people, society, politics and economy. Not clear to me, however, is how long each of these stays was and what Walker did while he was in Ban Tiam. He refers to surveying households in the village at least a couple of times; he also had numerous conversations with residents. At various times two assistants helped him learn from villagers; one of them, writes Walker, spent more time in Ban Tiam than he did (p. xi). I am not questioning Walker’s deep knowledge and understanding of the village and its political dynamics. I am keen to know in some detail how he became so well informed.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jul 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: In this paper, a critical scrutiny of the unchanging replay of traditionalized narratives in texts and live street performances of getai, as well as of theme songs from Singaporean films and Taiwanese soap operas demonstrates the process through which pop music becomes vestigial.
Abstract: As part of its modernization project, the postcolonial Singapore state has systematically marginalized the vernacular cultures of the country’s colonial-era immigrant society. Nevertheless, Hokkien popular music has persisted not only in the street festivals that were so characteristic of the colonial port city but also in local movies. A combination of official discouragement and changes in education levels and demography has diminished the significance of Hokkien music in the country. Instead of the mark of evolving, living culture, Hokkien music resembles more of a vestigial articulation of working class tribulations and of middle class nostalgia and reaction to the vicissitudes of capitalist modernity in Singapore. Critical scrutiny of the unchanging replay of traditionalized narratives in texts and live street performances of getai , as well as of theme songs from Singaporean films and Taiwanese soap operas, demonstrates the process through which pop music becomes vestigial.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Mar 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: Ethnographic observation of a multinational avian influenza project in Vietnam permits exploration of the ways in which “global health” operates in a Communist state characterized by an active governmental apparatus.
Abstract: Recent scholarship suggests that in areas featuring entrenched poverty and compromised state infrastructures, disease outbreaks prompt multinational interventions that often supplant state institutions in the provision of health services. Ethnographic observation of a multinational avian influenza project in Vietnam permits exploration of the ways in which “global health” operates in a Communist state characterized by an active governmental apparatus. Descriptions of the routine activities of one veterinary cadre illustrate the practical actions through which the Vietnamese state exerts influence over global health processes. In the daily work of bird flu management, global health cadres negotiate an inconstant divide between multinational health agendas and established practices of state-making. The analysis thus begins the crucial task of addressing the ways in which global health interventions operate in nations that, while vulnerable to public health emergencies, are nevertheless characterized by growing economies and influential state apparatuses.

Journal Article
01 Nov 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reviewed two books on water-resource development in the lower Mekong Basin and discussed the role of participants, ranging from international donors and experts to those at the village and farm levels, who must bear the consequences of decisions in which they have had no part.
Abstract: I have chosen to review these two books together because they deal with different, but related, issues in water-resource development in the lower Mekong Basin. Concerns related to development and to conflict in the Mekong Basin are in the news almost daily. These two books help us to understand the full picture and role of participants, ranging from the international donors and experts to those at the village and farm levels, who must bear the consequences of decisions in which they have had no part.

Journal Article
01 Mar 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: In the case of Laos, as Sarinda Singh illustrates in her recently published village ethnography of forestresource politics, the extreme bifurcation between policy and practice is a central theme for important new research on Lao political practice.
Abstract: It comes as no surprise to many that developing-country settings often display a major gap between formal government policies and the actuality of governing. In the case of Laos, as Sarinda Singh illustrates in her recently published village ethnography of forestresource politics, the extreme bifurcation between policy and practice is a central theme for important new research on Lao political practice. The split is the effect of, on the one hand, impossible demands for coherent environmental policy on the part of international donors and, on the other, the profound social contradictions generated by several decades of intensive transnational resource extraction. “[F]ew people take [forest] policy as a guide for practice”, writes Singh (p. 131), in a passage that describes how the obvious fabrication of statistics can serve to ward off criticism. Rather, optimistic policy assertions function as warnings: “Forest decline is not to be linked to the state” (p. 131). Her book is about how those links are made explicit in spite of official optimism. Singh’s anthropological contribution to the political ecology of Lao resource extraction is an important step in the study of the country’s resource regimes, and in orienting a new generation of critical scholars of Lao political ecology. Particularly welcome is Singh’s sustained effort to think about the form of the Lao state, as she does with respect to three processes: “the policy-practice divide, patronage politics, and practices that rely on and perpetuate secrecy, fear and uncertainty” (p. 7). By 2004, the time of Singh’s fieldwork on the Nakai Plateau in central Laos, the area’s wealth had been systematically plundered by monopolistic military logging enterprises, wildlife depletion made easy by the porous border with Vietnam, and the planned Nam Theun 2 hydropower facility, which

Journal Article
01 Nov 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: Kirksey as discussed by the authors investigated the independence movement in West Papua and its finding "freedom in entangled worlds" after the fall of Soeharto in 1998, and analyzed the kinds of "freedom/s" that West Papuans were able to engender under conditions of Indonesian colonization and military brutality.
Abstract: Freedom in Entangled Worlds is an excellent ethnographic investigation of the independence movement in West Papua and of its finding “freedom in entangled worlds” after the fall of Soeharto in 1998. It is courageously and rigorously researched, elegantly written, and — with its photographs of West Papua — visually rich. Kirksey analyses the kinds of “freedom/s” that West Papuans — from farmers, women poets and activists, spiritual and ritual leaders and parliamentarians to guerrillas in the mountains — have been able to engender under conditions of Indonesian colonization and military brutality. His accounts of massacres and of controversial events such as the fatal shooting of three teachers (two Americans, one Indonesian) near the Freeport McMoRan copper mine in 2002 and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation’s cover-up of the incident make for gripping reading. It will appeal especially to those who wish to trace the entangled relationships between local events in West Papua, the “collaborative” activities of those struggling for independence, and the present “architecture of global power” (for a comparative example of analyses on the invention of terror and complex mappings of “security” and “insecurity”, see, for example, Aaronson 2013 and Scahill 2013). Kirksey writes,


Journal Article
01 Nov 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: The book Beyond the Sacred Forest as discussed by the authors is concerned with resource use and agrarian political economy in upland Indonesia and Malaysia rather than specifically with the question of the management of potentially degradable resources.
Abstract: (terms that it uses largely interchangeably) on the one hand and the broader study of what the introduction calls “resource-use regimes” (p. 12) on the other. Several chapters deal with natural resources mainly through a focus on property, access, land use and territory rather than engaging more directly with the question of the management of potentially degradable resources. At times, then, the book loses its analytical focus on conservation. In some ways, the volume is perhaps understood better as being about resource use and agrarian political economy in upland Indonesia and Malaysia than specifically about conservation. These caveats, however, take nothing away from the many accomplishments of Beyond the Sacred Forest.


Journal Article
01 Mar 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: Contestations of Memory in Southeast Asia as mentioned in this paper examines the nature of social memory, and particularly its transmission through a region awash in multiple "histories" and seemingly endless ethnolinguistic perspectives, sharing a somewhat contrived national space.
Abstract: One of the great tensions of historical inquiry is the frequent disconnect between official, institutional versions of the past and histories shaped by popular and collective memory. While the former enjoys the weight of academic authentication, the latter holds an essential meaning beyond circumscribed narratives, and often problematizes any official rendering of the past. This is particularly true for Southeast Asia, a region awash in multiple “histories” and seemingly endless ethnolinguistic perspectives, each sharing a somewhat contrived national space. It is this complexity and tension that Roxana Waterson and Kwok Kian-Woon attempt to address in their edited volume Contestations of Memory in Southeast Asia. The editors frame the subject matter with an extensive review of the theoretical literature, exploring such issues as memory and identity formation, the impact of traumatic memory, the transmission of social memory, and the contingencies of the nation-state as they relate to established and remembered historical narratives. While the editors’ discussion provides an expansive survey of the field, their attempt to demonstrate the breadth of the subject (delving extensively into European cases of trauma and memory, for example) sometimes takes their focus away from the exceptional nature of Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, this broad approach yields to tighter focus in the volume’s subsequent chapters, which provide a firm geographical grounding to the volume. Broadly, this book examines two overarching themes: first, the nature of social memory, and particularly its transmission through

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jul 2013-Sojourn
TL;DR: Despite the Indonesian state's unfavourable policies towards Chinese culture and religion, the free school run by the Semarang Confucian Society has survived across more than six decades as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Despite the Indonesian state’s unfavourable policies towards Chinese culture and religion, the free school run by the Semarang Confucian Society has survived across more than six decades. Its history from 1950 to 2010 serves as a case study of Chinese Indonesian adaptability. It also provides a vehicle for revisiting the debate of the late 1950s and early 1960s between “assimilationists” and “integrationists” over the position of Chinese in the Indonesian nation. The school’s longevity was the result of its administrators’ undertaking various measures to ensure not only that they would escape being penalized by the state for their Chinese ethnicity and religion but also that they would gain official acceptance for providing a valuable service to the Indonesian nation. Viewed from the perspective of today’s more culturally inclusive Indonesia, the case of the Taman Kanak-kanak-Sekolah Dasar Kuncup Melati offers an example of both Chinese survival and Indonesian adaptability.